Using the RegularExpression scalar

First an explanation: To create a new scalar type for the GraphQL schema language, you must create an instance of a new GraphQLScalarType object that implements three general functions/methods: serialize, parseValue and parseLiteral which are used at different stages of processing your GraphQL types during queries and mutations. So creating a new scalar looks like this:

const MyScalar = new GraphQLScalarType({
  name: 'MyScalar',
  description: 'A description of my scalar',
  serialize(value) {
    // ...
    return value
  },
  parseValue(value) {
    // ...
    return value
  },
  parseLiteral(ast) {
    // ...
    return ast.value
  }
})

Given this, if we want to create a new type that is essentially the same except for one little customizable aspect (e.g., a regular expression type that has all the same code except the regex is different) then we need to dynamically generate a new GraphQLScalarType object given some parameters. That’s the approach we take here.

Therefore, the RegularExpression scalar type is really a GraphQLScalarType object generator that takes two arguments:

• A name
• The regex you want it to use

So to create a new scalar for a given regex, you will do this:

const MyRegexType = new RegularExpression('MyRegexType', /^ABC$/)

Now MyRegexType is your new GraphQL scalar type that will enforce a value of, in this case, “ABC”.

Add your new scalar type to your resolver map:

export default {
  MyRegexType
  // ...
}

And to your schema:

scalar MyRegexType

That’s it. Now you can use MyRegexType as a type in the rest of your schema.

RegularExpression options

There is an optional third options argument to the RegularExpression constructor that can be used like this:

const options = {
  errorMessage(regex, value) {
    return process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production'
      ? `Value is invalid format: ${value}`
      : `Value does not match the regular expression ${regex}: ${value}`
  }
}
 
const MyRegexType = new RegularExpression('MyRegexType', /^ABC$/, options)